Year A – Session 2
ONLINE RESOURCES:
Margaret Wheatley & Deborah Frieze, “Lifecycle of Emergence.” A quick way to begin your exploration of the phenomenon of “emergence.” This 2006 article is an online-only resource.
1999 conversation with Ronald Heifetz on the Dialogue on Change website, entitled “Adaptive Change: What’s Essential and What’s Expendable?”
2006 interview with Ronald Heifetz, from the www.managementfirst.com website.
Larry Peers, “Re-creating Congregational Stories: Insights from Narrative Therapy.”
Graham Standish, “Humble Leadership.”
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR THIS SESSION:
Resource Group #1: Leadership and Systemic Change
· Ronald Heifetz and Donald Laurie, “The Work of Leadership.” This Harvard Business Review summary of Heifetz’s model of adaptive leadership has in only a decade become essential reading for business leaders and church pastors alike. In case you haven’t read it before, a copy is included in this session’s resources. Resource/Reading #10
· Margaret Wheatley & Deborah Frieze, “Lifecycle of Emergence.” A quick way to begin your exploration of the phenomenon of “emergence.” This 2006 article is an online-only resource. Resource/Reading # 11.
· Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, Chapter 10, 169-186, “The Real World” (using Hurricane Katrina and international terrorism as test cases of her approach. Resource/Reading # 12.
Resource Group #2: Narrative Leadership
· Margaret Wheatley, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, 16-31. “The New Story is Ours to Tell.” Wheatley herself draws on aspects of “narrative leadership” in describing what she sees as an epochal time of transition in human affairs in general. Resource/Reading # 13.
· Larry Peers, “Re-Creating Congregational Stories: Insights from Narrative Therapy” (Congregations magazine). Alban consultant Larry Peers’ short, readable introduction to a fascinating approach to leadership that draws on his extensive background in congregational studies, organizational development, large-group interventions, coaching, narrative therapy, and spiritual discernment processes. Resource/Reading # 14.
Resource Group #3: Humble Leadership
· N. Graham Standish, “Whatever Happened to Humility? Rediscovering a Misunderstood Leadership Strength.” (Congregations magazine) Drawing on his Alban Institute book, Humble Leadership, Graham Standish proposes that humility may not be the opposite of leadership, but actually essential to the task of every leader. Resource/Reading # 15.
· Peter Steinke, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times, “People of the Charm,” 163-75 on narcissistic functioning as a systemic problem in congregational life. We’ve all known them, whether in church, business or personal life; the very opposite of humble leadership, “people of the charm” display what Steinke calls “narcissistic functioning” – an inability to make meaningful relationships with others, engaging rather in strategies of domination that in the end destroy relationships, rather than sustaining them. Resource/Reading # 16.